in Health­care

of the Amer­i­can Public Health As­so­ci­a­tion, said re­sponses from his mem­bers to the le­gal joust­ing at the Supreme Court echo “the usual queasi­ness you get in a tight bas­ket­ball game.”

Or­ga­ni­za­tions rep­re­sent­ing physi­cians and hos­pi­tals have warned their mem­bers not to leap to con­clu­sions. For in­stance, the Amer­i­can Hospi­tal As­so­ci­a­tion pointed out that some ob­servers as­sumed the law was in trou­ble when it faced ag­gres­sive ques­tion­ing from a panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Ap­peals for the Dis­trict of Columbia Cir­cuit. But the panel up­held the en­tire law.

In talk­ing to of­fi­cials at mem­ber hos­pi­tals, “We made it clear that you can’t with any re­li­a­bil­ity de­ter­mine what the court is go­ing to do based on the oral ar­gu­ment,” said Melinda Hat­ton, AHA se­nior vice pres­i­dent and gen­eral coun­sel.

The law has al­ready and will in­creas­ingly af­fect nearly ev­ery type of health­care provider, and providers have raised con­cerns that the court could strike down the cov­er­age ex­pan­sions and leave the law’s cost-sav­ing pro­vi­sions. The AHA es­ti­mated the law would re­duce hospi­tal